German sequencing service provider Eurofins MWG Operon has upped its sequencing capacity by purchasing a Roche GS Junior, which it said it plans to use for projects that are not suitable for higher-throughput instruments.
Currently, the company offers next-gen sequencing services on the 454 GS FLX and the Illumina GA.
The new machine, which sequences approximately 35 million bases in a 10-hour run, with average read lengths in the range of 400 base pairs, will add more flexibility in project planning and increase turnaround time for small projects, the company said. Additionally, "it allows new possibilities in quality control," for example in checking libraries before sequencing or for validating sequence data for molecular diagnostics.
The GS Junior will "allow our customers to plan experiments that have not been possible in this short timeframe before," Bruno Poddevin, Eurofins' senior vice president of genomic services, said in a statement. "In addition, it will secure the high quality of our high throughput sequencing projects and allow us to develop new applications in a reasonable time and at reasonable cost."